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University of Michigan shooter looked 'like a robot' while killing students, professor says

2023-02-17T12:36:27.198Z


This is the account of Professor Marco Díaz Muñoz, who was halfway through his Cuban literature class when a gunman stormed the campus, killing several people and injuring others. 


Video shows students running away during shooting in Michigan 3:58

East Lansing, Michigan (CNN) --

The noise was so loud that it didn't sound like gunshots from the movies to Marco Díaz Munoz, but more like an exploding electrical generator.

"But then there was one, there were two, there were three," the Michigan State University assistant professor told CNN of the sounds.

Then an armed man entered his classroom.

Díaz Muñoz was in the middle of his Monday night class on Cuban literature when the world changed for him, his students and the Michigan State University (MSU) community at large.

Within minutes, the welcoming community of the open campus was torn apart by another shooter's rampage at another school, by yet another mass shooting across America that killed several innocents.

Diaz-Muñoz's class was the first location targeted by the gunman, who also opened fire at the MSU student union before authorities say police confronted him and killed himself.

“I was able to see this figure, and it was so horrible because when you see someone who is totally masked, you don't see their face, you don't see their hands, it was like seeing a robot,” Díaz Muñoz said of the armed attacker who entered his salon. classes.

"It was like seeing something non-human standing there."

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Díaz Munoz could see it all when the man stepped a few inches through the back door of room 114 in Berkey Hall, the teaching room he always requested.

The teacher was on the other side of the room, teaching up front.

“I don't know how long he was there,” the professor recalled.

“He made at least 15 shots, one after another, one after another.

Bang bang bang."

And then the attacker backed into the hallway, but Díaz Muñoz didn't know if the threat was over.

“My intuition told me that he is walking down the hall and that he is going to enter through the door that is closest to me” at the front of the room, he said.

“So, I threw myself into that door and I squatted down and held the door like this,” he said, holding his hands clasped in front of his face, “so my weight would support it and I was putting my foot on the wall.”

All along, he said, he was aware that the attacker could shoot through the handle he was holding.

He told his students to kick in the windows of the downstairs classroom so they could escape.

The bottom panels weren't broken, but the top ones were, and some students were able to get out, he said.

Others did not.

“They were trying to cover the wounds (of the wounded) with their hands so they wouldn't bleed to death,” Díaz Muñoz said.

“They were heroic because they could have escaped through the windows.

They stayed, helping their classmates.”

  • Michigan State University killer was previously charged with a felony, but could still buy guns

Demonstrators rally for gun reform at the Michigan Capitol in Lansing on Thursday, three days after the shooting.

(Credit: Meridith Edwards/CNN)

10, maybe 12 minutes passed, each one feeling like an eternity, before Díaz Muñoz saw the policemen at his door, moved his body from his position like a barricade and let them in, allowing them to see his students.

“There was a horrendous scene.

I have never seen so much blood,” she said.

Some students had tried to hide under the fixed seats in the classroom.

A man in the middle of a row was calling for help, saying that he had asthma and he couldn't breathe.

Díaz Muñoz says he can't stand seeing blood, and always turns his back if blood is drawn for a test.

Under other circumstances, he imagined that he would have simply fainted at the sight of it, but this time other reactions arose.

The teacher said that he started to remove one of the students, but then stopped in case he was hurting him more than helping.

He was then taken from the room by police officers or paramedics, he said.

He later learned that two of his students, Arielle Anderson and Alexandria Verner, had died.

Brian Fraser was shot dead at the student union.

Díaz Muñoz believes that most or all of the injured were also in his class.

“These two girls who died were good girls, serious students, both of them.”

Seeing them fatally injured in his class, in his favorite room in his favorite building on his beloved campus, haunts him.

Díaz Muñoz first came to MSU as a graduate student, then returned in 2008 as a professor.

Whenever the schedules were drawn up, he always asked to be put back in room 114 of Berkey Hall.

He knew how to work with the technology there and loved the view through the windows at the Broad Art Museum, he explained.

  • These are the victims of the mass shooting at Michigan State University

Video shows how students hid from Michigan shooting 1:24

A call to address America's gun and mental health crisis.

Now the vision of a sacrificed young life is at the top of his mind.

"This is the image I want to delete, that was horrible," he said.

"I don't know how to explain to you the guilt, the horror, the guilt, the pain that I felt and still feel," he said.

The docent said he arrived at his home around 3 a.m. Tuesday.

His wife, who had been waiting for him in a different corridor than the one the attacker was believed to be using, was with him.

With chronic insomnia, he took medication and slept, she said.

For the rest of Tuesday, he gave himself permission not to think about anything, he said.

"There's a part of me that feels like I want to hide under the covers and take more pills and not wake up for a while," she said.

“I want to not remember these scenes and not have to go to teach that class.

“But there is another part of me that feels a great need, a strong need to see my students again… to see that they are alive, I need to see their faces,” he said.

And he added that he's trying to write them a letter, but he's having a hard time knowing what to say.

And it also has a broader momentum.

“Something made me think that if I can do anything to stop this madness, I have to.

People need to know what happened."

The professor added his voice to those who want to see more done about America's mental health crisis and address gun control.

And by telling his story, he hopes he can paint a picture of what happened.

“It is very different to hear a statistic on the news – three more children died or 12 more died – than to see what I saw,” he explained.

“I think if those senators or legislators saw what I saw, not just listen to statistics, they would be ashamed to act.”

  • Who is the suspect in the Michigan State University shooting and what do we know about him?

MSU students were among those who protested gun reform at the state Capitol on Thursday.

(Credit: Meridith Edwards/CNN)

As a teacher, he says he knows how to rationalize: argue one side and make you believe it and then turn around and argue the other side and be just as convincing.

He said he believes politicians and others are rationalizing the causes and impacts of shootings to serve their own agenda when he feels the most beneficial changes in history come from people allowing themselves to listen to their humanity.

He added that he has felt the weight of what happened.

“She was crying in that classroom, seeing the damage done and the pain and the horrible scenes… especially those two girls,” she said.

For now, he wants to go back to teaching.

Back to being the strict but fair teacher who pushes students to get as much as they can from the courses they pay for.

Especially for the students in his Cuban literature class on Monday nights, with whom he now shares an even greater bond.

“Those children for me now are like my family, and I want to see them,” he said.

“I want to help them, and I want to inspire them, and I want to teach them, and I want to help them end the semester on as positive a note as possible under the circumstances.

“I think I need to see them.

I think they need to see me and be in a classroom and somehow build something positive out of the broken pieces."

But not in that room.

Not where a man who looked more like a robot stole lives and the feeling of peace.

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Source: cnnespanol

All news articles on 2023-02-17

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